I went on a date with a guy my friend set me up with. He showed up with flowers (not a grocery store bunch, actual roses). Dinner was perfect. He was charming, opened doors, and pulled out my chair. When the check came, I reached for my wallet. Big mistake. \u201cAbsolutely not,\u201d he said, sliding his card down. \u201cA man pays on the first date.\u201d I walked away thinking it was one of the best first dates ever.<\/p>\n
That was until the next morning when I saw that he\u2019d sent me a Venmo request for half the bill\u2014plus the flowers. Subject line: \u201cFair\u2019s fair \ud83d\ude0a.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stared at my phone, jaw on the floor. The roses? $38. Dinner split? $47.50. He even added a $2 \u201cservice fee\u201d for \u201chandling the reservation.\u201d I laughed, then cried, then blocked him.<\/p>\n
My friend called, mortified. \u201cI had no idea he was that<\/em> guy.\u201d Apparently, he\u2019d bragged in their group chat about \u201cteaching women independence.\u201d I sent him the full amount with a note: \u201cLesson learned. Next time, I\u2019ll pay upfront\u2014and bring my own flowers.\u201d<\/p>\n Now I tell everyone: charm is free, but always check the fine print.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I went on a date with a guy my friend set me up with. He showed up with flowers (not a grocery store bunch, actual roses). Dinner was perfect. He was charming, opened doors, and pulled out my chair. When the check came, I reached for my wallet. Big mistake. \u201cAbsolutely not,\u201d he said, sliding …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2429,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lifestorybuffering.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/re5-4.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifestorybuffering.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifestorybuffering.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifestorybuffering.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifestorybuffering.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifestorybuffering.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifestorybuffering.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2430,"href":"https:\/\/lifestorybuffering.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2428\/revisions\/2430"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifestorybuffering.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifestorybuffering.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifestorybuffering.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifestorybuffering.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}